1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of scanning and recording images for simultaneously duplicating picture images by exposure on the basis of picture signals obtained by photoelectrically scanning an original by a color scanner. More specifically, it relates to a method of compositely recording line images and pictorial images when an original includes gradated pictorial images and line images consisting of characters, figures or the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With development of so-called color scanners for efficiently duplicating a large quantity of color original pictures as color-separated halftone images in recent years, color prints have come into wide use with improved productivity in color photomechanical process.
In general, color prints produced in accordance with a desired layout coexistently include line images such as characters and figures and gradated pictorial images.
Conventionally in processing such prints coexistently including the line images and the pictorial images, original film plates have been separately produced such that pictorial images are produced as halftone images simultaneously with color separation performed by a color scanner while line images are produced by photoduplication employing a process camera, whereby the both images are composed with each other through contact exposure.
An apparatus so-called a layout scanner, which has been subjected to practical use in recent years, can directly output and record color separated images to be finally subjected to desired layout by digital processing of picture image signals.
It is well known that, when pictorial images and line images are coexistently present in an original to be duplicated, the pictorial images are processed through selectively setting up reproduction conditions suitable to reproduction of the pictorial images, i.e., halftone images, while the line images are processed by selectively setting up reproduction conditions of high resolution suitable to reproduction of the line images.
For example, in a co-pending U.S. patent application allocated Ser. No. 616,389, areas of pictorial images and those of line images in an original are respectively designated by coordinate values so as to selectively set up reproduction conditions suitable to the respective areas when the position of a scanning point is coincident with the designated coordinate values during scanning of the original picture. However, although such the method as mentioned above may be advantageous in the case where the pictorial image and the line image are separated by relatively simple border lines, designation of the coordinate values is difficult when border lines are complicatedly entangled, leading to impossibility especially in superimposition of characters alone in a pictorial image in practice.